Oswald as a Character

The character of Lee Harvey Oswald presents an interesting set of dichotomies in Don Delillo's Libra. G. Robert Blakey, a law professor featured in the documentary, describes the real life Oswald as, “a mystery wrapped up in an enigma, hidden behind a riddle.”

Lee, as he is called in the novel, is both smart and dumb. He has a learning disability but manages to overcome it and read marxist literature at a young age. As a character, he is likeable and relatable, but also hated by a lot of characters in the book. To me, he seems like the annoying younger-brother-type, who just tries to provoke others just for the sake of doing it. For example, when he rides in the back of the bus, he doesn’t say whether he was doing it out of principle or naivete and he becomes a “misplaced martyr” when he gets beaten up for his actions.

Delillo chooses to refer to the protagonist as Lee, instead of his full name. To me, this makes Oswald seem more like a character in a book than an assassin. No one in the news or media has ever referred to him with something as familiar as Lee. There are times in the book were I feel bad for Lee. The way he is presented makes me forget that he is the man who killed John F. Kennedy.

Kevin and Dana

Kevin and Dana are subject to the rules of the time periods they travel to, but the different opportunities they both have as a white man and a black woman are starkly different and highlight an important tension that exists throughout time.

Both Dana and Kevin are like actors when they go back in time. They have to play along with the other characters, but Dana’s role as a slave is much more real than Kevin’s as a slave-owner. Dana pretty much becomes a slave to the Weylins throughout her experiences at the house and is subject to both the judgment of the Weylins and eventually the field-hands who see her as an “Uncle Tom.” Kevin, on the other hand, is more of a tourist and his judgments are less scrutinizing than Dana’s. This is illustrated when Dana and Kevin see the slave children pretend to sell each other. Kevin just sees kids playing, while Dana sees the effects of a time period that indoctrinated children to accept their enslavement.

This tension can also be seen in Dana and Kevin’s relationship in 1976. Kevin wants Dana to type his manuscripts instead of working at a menial, manual labor job she referred to as the “slave market” (52). Kevin doesn’t understand that Dana wants the job for the independance. As an observer, Kevin cannot relate to the position Dana is in. He is trying to help Dana but ends up damaging their relationship.

Slave to the Times

Many characters in the novel Kindred can be see as enslaved by the times they live in. Their actions would be different if the cultural norms of the times they lived in were not in place. This is seen in many characters, but especially in Rufus.

From what we gather from when he was a child, Rufus doesn't seem like an inherently evil person. He is friends with Alice and treats Dana with respect, so we see that he isn't born with prejudice. For example, in his youth, Rufus would come to Dana for advice, and not his step-mother. Dana is a very maternal figure to him. Rufus also yearns to live in the future so he and can have a relationship with Alice similar to Dana’s and Kevin’s; but because of the time he lives in, he is not afforded the opportunity to have a “normal” relationship with Alice.

All of the bad things Rufus eventually does are seen as normal in his time period, but he knows that they are immoral because Dana calls him out on them. For example, when Rufus sells Tess, one of his slaves, he tells Dana that it was already arranged by his father. This is an excuse that Rufus makes up just to please Dana. Rufus remains childlike throughout the book because he looks to Dana as a mother-figure, but she is not in his life enough to have a lasting impression, so Rufus’s character is naturally shaped by the time he lives in. He is spoiled by the amount of power that a white plantation owner in the Antebellum South was given.